DONETSK, Ukraine –- Tensions in Ukraine appeared to worsen on Tuesday as the president ordered military reinforcements to key eastern cities after NATO reported that Russia has moved hundreds of troops closer to the border.

President Petro Poroshenko said Ukrainian units were sent to safeguard the strategic seaside cities of Mariupol and Berdyansk as well as the country’s second largest city of Kharkiv and the northern Luhansk region.

The decision comes on the heels of a crisis meeting of top Ukrainian security officials in Kiev following an election held by the pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that was condemned by the West as a farce but recognized by Russia.
"We are obliged...not to allow the spread of this cancerous tumor,"the president told his National Security and Defense Council about his decision to deploy additional troops to the east to stem the tide of separatism.
The rebel ranks have been abuzz in recent days about the resumption of hostilities and specifically an assault on Mariupol, a key port city on the Sea of Azov.
Alexander Zakharchenko, the newly elected head of the so-called "Donetsk People’s Republic," who was inaugurated on Tuesday in a ceremony that included a man dancing in a bear costume, said that he would "use force" to capture Mariupol if negotiations with Kiev to turn it over to the rebels failed.
Kiev has thus far refused to negotiate directly with them and considers them to be "terrorists."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (C) shakes hands with Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament Oleksandr Turchynov (L) during the National Security and Defense Council meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, on November 4, 2014.

Image: Vladimir Shtanko/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Poroshenko said Sunday’s rebel vote to elect new leadership threatened to deepen the crisis and violated the terms of a peace plan laid out in September to bring an end to the undeclared war that has killed more than 4,000 people since April.
Meanwhile, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned in Brussels that Russia continues to arm, train and support the rebels despite calls from the EU and U.S. for it not to meddle.
"Russia continues to support [the] separatists by training them, by providing equipment and support them by also having Russian special forces inside eastern parts of Ukraine," he told journalists.
A senior Ukrainian security official, who spoke with Mashable on condition of anonymity, said that his organization’s intelligence also shows Russian covert operations to be underway in Ukraine. However, the official claimed any Russian agents are being monitored as are convoys coming into Ukraine across the rebel-controlled borderline.

A pro-Russian rebel fighter stands guard near one of the trucks sent by Russia last week that was part of convoy supposedly carrying humanitarian aid. Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said seven of every 10 trucks carried fuel.

Russia has repeatedly denied military involvement in eastern Ukraine, in the face of what Western governments are saying are overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Reporters on the ground, too, have witnessed Russian military equipment crossing into Ukraine from Russia’s Rostov region and have spoken with Russian soldiers in rebel-held territory.

Russian troops often say they are "volunteers" on vacation, and claim not to be under direct orders to be in eastern Ukraine. Several have admitted to receiving Russian military aid, while other say their weapons are captured from Ukrainian forces.
In the past week, Mashable has observed three convoys of military vehicles –- some with Russian military plates –- transporting soldiers, crates of ammunition and anti-aircraft guns from the direction of the Russian border towards to separatists’ stronghold of Donetsk.

The vehicles in two of the convoys numbered more than 30, while more than 60 trucks were counted in a third.
At the same time, a fourth and a fifth wave of Russian humanitarian aid entered eastern Ukraine in dozens of large trucks by way of border checkpoints controlled by the rebels.

Kiev said it was not able to inspect the supposed aid, while the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said in a monitoring report that the Russian convoy included seven fuel tankers.
Mashable was granted access to one truck, which was packed with boxes marked "mackerel." Rebels, however, did not open any of the boxes to confirm that the fish were inside.
NATO's Stoltenberg said Russia has also tested the limits outside Ukraine in recent weeks, rattling its saber by increasing military flights near NATO air space in Europe.
The organization detected and monitored four groups of Russian military aircraft conducting maneuvers in European airspace over the Baltic Sea, North Sea/Atlantic Ocean, and Black Sea on Oct. 28 and 29, according to its website.

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